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FNL, Superstars of Dance on NBC's January Schedule

BuzzSugar — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:00:13 -0800

FNL, Superstars of Dance on NBC's January Schedule NBC today announced its January schedule, which includes Superstars of Dance, Howie Mandel's hidden camera reality show Howie Do It, and the NBC premiere of Friday Night Lights on Jan. 16. Meanwhile, Heroes and Chuck will take January off. A schedule for February and March is expected to follow sometime later.

TV Tonight: Friday Night Lights, if You're Lucky

BuzzSugar — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:30:55 -0700

There's so much great TV on tonight (including the premieres of Pushing Daisies and Private Practice), and yet the one show I'm really pining for is the one that will be hardest to watch. Friday Night Lights returns tonight for its third season — if, that is, you have DirecTV.

I'm trying not to be too bitter; after all, DirecTV is basically the reason we're getting a third season at all. Under a unique deal, NBC and DirecTV are sharing the costs of producing this 13-episode season, with DirecTV getting the rights to air the episodes first on its 101 Network. NBC plans to air the episodes as well, tentatively in February, but they'll be slightly edited from the extended versions airing commercial-free on DirecTV.

Back at TCA, I got some hints about what's coming up, and I'm heartened to hear from some critics who have already seen the premiere episode that the show seems to have returned to its roots after a second season that occasionally went off-course. It's a shame so many of us will have to wait to see it, but the fact that it's coming back at all is enough to make me smile.

After the jump, you can watch two promos for this season: a spooky, moody number set to "Devil Town" (shades of the season one finale), and another with one of Coach Taylor's best speeches (I dare you not to get chills). Will you be watching on DirecTV? Holding out for NBC? Scouring the web for, um, other ways to watch? Check out the videos and let me know when you

Five Minutes With Connie Britton

BuzzSugar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:30:06 -0700

One of the biggest Emmy snubs — now two years running! — is the exclusion of Connie Britton for her pitch-perfect performance as Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights. For two years, she's played Tami's highs (helping troubled Tyra get her act together) and lows (slapping daughter Julie outside after a particularly troublesome act of teen rebellion) with just the right balance of drama and humor — and, when season three begins, she'll find Tami in a demanding new job.

At NBC's party at the TCA press tour, I stole a few minutes with Britton, who was just back from a trip to Uganda and Kenya with One and the Africa Children's Choir. Despite jet lag — and the fact that I was the only person between her and a glass of wine — Britton was still incredibly gracious in our chat (just as I'd always suspected she'd be). The first question is a wee bit spoilery, but if you want to see the highlights, just

Friday Night Lights: A First Look at Season Three

BuzzSugar — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:48:50 -0700

Score! The Friday Night Lights crew stopped by the TCA press tour on Sunday to chat about their new deal with DirecTV and what's in store for the upcoming season three.

The show will begin shooting again in Austin in August, executive producer Jason Katims said, and it will premiere Oct. 1 on DirecTV before turning up up on NBC sometime in February. The cast all seemed grateful to be back for another season (not to mention back together — Taylor Kitsch couldn't stop calling Kyle Chandler "Chands," which prompted a few giggles). So what's happening when the show picks up? To find out (spoiler alert!), just

Two Panthers Benched for New Season of Friday Night Lights

BuzzSugar — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:45:35 -0700

Two longtime Dillon Panthers players won't be on screen quite so much when Friday Night Lights returns for its third season. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the two players, who have been series regulars, will now just be recurring characters in the upcoming season. The info could be a little spoilery, so I'll put it behind the jump — but, for the record, I don't think it's necessarily bad news. To see the details and hear my thoughts, just

NBC's Fall Schedule: My Take

BuzzSugar — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:36:52 -0700

NBC started off this year's Upfronts more than a month early this afternoon, kicking off the frenzy of Fall TV announcements with its no-frills presentation (which took the form of either a PowerPoint presentation or a conference call, depending on where you were). While the format of the announcements wasn't thrilling, the content will give us much to speculate about over the next few months. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

I think Save Friday Night Lights said this one best: Touchdown! The Friday Night Lights/DirecTV deal had been sounding like a sure thing for a while, but it's nice to know for sure that the Panthers will live to play another season. There are more details over here about how the partnership will work, but the short version is that episodes will start airing on DirecTV in October and then be broadcast at 9 p.m. on Fridays on NBC starting in February. I wonder, though, if people will actually wait for the NBC episodes or if BitTorrent and YouTube will be the real beneficiaries here.
The spinoff of The Office is . . . mysterious, to say the least. NBC issued a separate press release about the show, but it's quite vague: "Audiences will follow another comic journey, complete with new faces and new locations, but with the same unique sense of humor and brand of quality from Daniels and his creative team." NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman said they were keeping a lid on things because Office fans are so rabid; when asked if characters from the main show would appear on the spinoff, he responded: "There's a huge ensemble on The Office right now . . . " Come on, man. A title? A setting? Anything?
More on that: Back in October, most of you thought a spinoff would be a bad idea. Now that it's happening, how do you feel? What's your dream setting for the show? Have you changed your mind about which characters it should focus on? Best suggestion I've heard so far: the warehouse.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the big headline from last Spring's NBC Upfront was a Heroes spinoff, and, well, we know how that turned out.
My gal Liberty is wondering what you think of NBC's plan to put special "Weekend Update" segments on the air on Thursdays leading up to the Presidential election in November. There certainly should be enough political mockery to go around by then.

Some other thoughts, plus the full night-by-night schedule, so just

PaleyFest: Scoop from Chuck, Friday Night Lights

BuzzSugar — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:30:54 -0700

I'm so excited to get down to the Paley Festival tonight, where the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be reuniting! While the Buffy panel was one of the hottest tickets in town, there's been lots of other great TV action all week, including panels with the stars of Chuck and Friday Night Lights.

The coolest revelation from the Chuck panel was that Chuck was originally supposed to have a girlfriend when the season started; then his relationship with Sarah would have been more like a love triangle right from the get-go. But the writers ultimately realized that having Chuck juggle two girls and be a spy might be a bit much, so Kayla was cut. You can watch a video clip of Josh Schwartz talking about saying farewell to the character after the jump. The Chuck writers are back at work now, and the show will start filming again in May. Yay!

Meanwhile, news about whether FNL will be renewed should be coming in a couple of weeks, but it certainly sounds like the cast and writers were feeling hopeful at Paley. And if (or when) the show comes back, the writers have a few things on their minds: making football a bigger part of the story again and possibly introducing new characters so the supposed seniors don't stay in high school forever. And if the show returns, we'll get to see Smash's transition to college football, which was a particularly moving storyline this season.

To watch that Chuck clip, as well as some video from the FNL panel, just

Touchdown? Friday Night Lights Might Get a Third Season!

BuzzSugar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:30:32 -0800

OK, so it's just a rumor right now, but it's a credible one: Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that Friday Night Lights will be renewed for a third season, thanks to a partnership with DirecTV. No deal has been officially announced, but another report says it's just waiting for a signature.

In essence, the deal will have NBC and DirecTV sharing the costs for producing the show. What, exactly, does that mean for us actually getting to see these new episodes of FNL? Unfortunately, that's not clear yet. I'm hoping the deal looks something like the NBC/USA arrangement with Law & Order: Criminal Intent, where episodes air first on USA and later on NBC; as a non-DirecTV subscriber, it would be sad to have to wait, but knowing I'd see the show eventually would be good enough. What I'm hoping won't happen is what NBC did with Passions, which made the episodes available only on DirecTV and nowhere else.

So, until the details are announced, I'm only going to consider this about 85 percent good news. But hey, that's better than nothing, right? Meanwhile, the Save Friday Night Lights folks still have more mini-footballs on the way, so we fans are definitely being heard. Say it with me now: Clear eyes, full hearts . . .

Source

FNL Fans Have a Special Delivery for NBC

BuzzSugar — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:30:00 -0800

Hey, NBC: Hope you can use some miniature footballs. Like, 6,250 of them. That's what's in those boxes in the picture above, and they're coming NBC's way this week, thanks to fans of Friday Night Lights who want to keep the show on the air.

A while back, I told you about a bunch of fan campaigns to convince NBC to renew the acclaimed but low-rated show for a third season. Though one effort, the Best Week Ever petition, seems to have gone belly-up (possibly due to corporate shenanigans), the folks at Save Friday Night Lights are trucking right along. As of Wednesday night, they'd raised a total of of almost $13,500 to send more than 16,000 customized mini-footballs to send to NBC. They're also raising money for various charities and for DVD sets — both for troops stationed overseas and for network executives at the channels that are reportedly considering sharing the show with NBC.

Will this campaign have Jericho-style traction and create enough ruckus to get the show another season? Only time — and several more pallets of mini-footballs — will tell, but as a fan, I'm encouraged by how well this campaign is doing. Plus, I can't wait to see what NBC does with the footballs. CBS is still trying to get rid of those peanuts.

Photos courtesy of NBC and Source

Link Time! 2/21

BuzzSugar — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:34:55 -0800

MTV Movie Blog's Josh Horowitz makes his very own Oscars opening montage, and it's rather hilarious.
Popwatch wants to know: What are the greatest duets of all time?
The TV Addict jokingly (I hope) imagines what Friday Night Lights might look like on various other networks.
Cinematical wonders if Jon Stewart will rock the Oscars. What do you think?
Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Daily says brace yourself: There's much, much more on the way from Paula Abdul.
TV with MeeVee wonders who's to blame for the demise of Bionic Woman.
Stereogum has us take a listen to Janet Jackson sampling Daft Punk in her song "So Much Betta."
TV Squad weighs in on whether the presidential election is shaping up like The West Wing's final season.